Glass Cages
by Acid Fantasia
Summary: After rather messily stabbing his crimelord father to death with a bread knife, Faegyn Ross is in danger of being murdered by his dad's so-called "business associates". He's placed under the protection of Reno of the Turks. Reno/OC. Full summary within.
1. Chapter 1

Glass Cages

_By Acid Fantasia_

_Summary --_ After stabbing his father rather messily to death, Faegyn Ross is in danger of being shuffled off the mortal coil himself by one of his father's creepy "business associates", corrupt men running a black market traffic in slaves… among other things. Fae is placed under the protection of Reno of the Turks, who is the first to discover him with his father's body. Friendship blossoms and soon threatens to turn into something more, but with Fae trapped in a glass cage of guilt and Reno absolutely emphatic that He. Is. Not. _Gay_. it looks like their relationship isn't even going to get off the ground. Add near constant attempts on Fae's life, Elena trying to play the matchmaker, a part time job at Seventh Heaven and lots of dot-dot-dotting from Rude and it'll be a wonder if anybody escapes with their sanity.

_Disclaimer Part One -- _I begged and begged and offered them pocky and Pop-Tarts but Squaresoft were evil and only allowed me to borrow a few of their totally awesome characters for a bitty bit. Isn't that sad? _AND_ they said I had to return them more or less unscratched or be forced to watch the Powerpuff Girls at EMR-point for the remainder of eternity. Bastards.

_Disclaimer Part Two _-- I don't own the lyrics of "The Man Who Sold the World" either. That right is solely David Bowie's. Or whoever wrote the song _for_ David Bowie… Did he write it? Did he? Ah well, I prefer the Nirvana version anyways.

_Warnings_ -- Violence, insanity on the part of the authoress, run-on sentences, seriously long-ass sentences with more commas embedded in them than should be legal, **guy on guy action** and **possible sex scenes **depending on whether I chicken out or not. Oh, and a fairly substantial smattering of cuss-words. Reno is in this fic after all. And… overdramatic summaries?

_Notes -- _With luck this will be one long-ass story. I'm thinking ten to fifteen chapters, maybe a bit more depending on inspiration. Updating will be erratic at best. And yes, this is a Reno/OC story. In Fae's defence it must be stated that he's a good OC. Don't knock 'im til you've tried 'im. …goddess, that sounds terrible.

This story is set like a year after Dirge of Cerberus. That means it's four years after the original game and two after the movie. ShinRa Corporations has merged with the WRO and managed to build itself back up to being a fairly substantial world power once more. It is, however, much more environmentally friendly these day, and kind of less of a fascist dictatorship. Huzzah. Rufus ShinRa isn't afraid to send out the Turks to eradicate people getting in the way of rebuilding the planet though, so Reno and the others still have jobs.

What else? Oh, yeah: please report typos, REVIEW and feel free to flame if you wanna be mocked to within an inch of your life. Criticism is, however, very welcome. Actually, I would love a decent bit of criticism.

That's about enough babbling from me now. Read on!

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Chapter One

_Who knows?_

_Not me._

_I never lost control._

_You're face to face_

_With the man who sold the world._

--The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie --

Friday evening found twenty one year old Faegyn Ross listening to incredibly loud rock music and scrubbing determinedly at a particularly stubborn bloodstain on his living room floor. The blond floorboards had soaked up the crimson fluid quite nicely and the two substances were simply refusing to part company. It was highly irritating.

It was perhaps a bit misleading to refer to the time as Friday _evening,_ since it was well into the wee hours and, were it not for the fact that he lived in an enormous mansion with enough security guards roaming the grounds to amount to a small army, Fae probably would have already had a visit from the nice noise control people asking him to silence the din so his neighbours could get at least a _few _hours sleep before dawn. As it was, he was left to scrub away, his tuneless singing swallowed up by the unholy racket of squealing guitars and screeched lyrics. Surrounded by sound he was easily able to ignore the cooling body lying a few feet away.

His fingers were bleeding. He must have sliced them on the knife as he drove it into the man's throat. He did recall that he'd been holding it a bit awkwardly. How strange that it had taken him so long to notice the injury. And no wonder the blood hadn't come out when he'd been adding to it with his own all along. With a muttered curse, Faegyn brushed back his scruffy black hair and stood.

The world spun lazily for a few seconds. Fae waited until it stopped, swaying in place, dark blue eyes staring far into the distance. When the floor finally decided to be solid and unmoving once more, he wandered off to the kitchen in search of Band-Aids, flicking the stereo down to silent as he went past it.

He walked past pure white walls smeared with bloody handprints left from the last time he'd been through there. The blood on the walls, however, was not his. On the floor were a collection of scarlet footprints, all barefoot, and all his. He'd left quite a mess behind him, he reflected hazily. It'd take so, so long to clean up. He'd get started just as soon as he finished on that stain in the living room.

It took him a disgustingly long time to get the Band-Aids securely wrapped around his fingers and he realised, even through the filmy haze that had dropped down around his brain sometime in the middle of all the screaming and the blood, that he was _shaking_. Him. Faegyn Ross, the perfect son, the perfect little businessman-in-the-making, Faegyn Ross with the icy smile and the nerves of steel, was **shaking**. How pathetic. His father would be angry to see him like this. No, wait a minute. That hardly mattered anymore did it? What his father felt/thought/did? Sudden rising from the grave aside, there was no way the bastard was ever going to be able to voice his displeasure ever again. Unless Fae ever succumbed to an irrational urge to visit a medium or something.

He drifted back to the living room, not looking at his traitorous hands or at the blood staining the world and the walls and the floorboards crimson, ignoring everything that defined that hellish moment as his mind crept back from the implications of what he'd done. He felt… strange. Like he was looking out at the world from behind a glass wall, able to see and hear and understand but unable to feel, to truly _comprehend_. He'd lost something and its loss was tearing him apart.

Fae shook his head sharply, trying to clear it of both the fog and of the unpleasant thoughts that insisted upon congregating in the dark corners of his mind, whispering snide things and tempting him with the comforting blank oblivion of madness. _It would be so easy to fall…_

No.

Fae dropped to his knees next to the irritating stain. Clean now, moron. Have a breakdown later.

He'd barely begun scrubbing again before a low whistle rang out, making him jump. His head slammed up and he stared numbly at the man bent over his father's corpse.

"Well, shit."

Hair only a few shades lighter than the blood staining Faegyn's world fell in a scruffy ponytail down the man's suit clad back. Both suit and the white dress shirt open at the throat beneath it were rumpled and creased, as though they'd never had anything more than a passing acquaintance with an iron in their entire existence. He was tall, a handful of inches taller than Fae and built somewhere between skinny and slender. The face that turned towards Fae as he staggered to his feet was pale and comprised entirely of sharp edges, set with angular bluey-green eyes that seemed to glow even in the brightly lit room, and decorated with identical scarlet tattoos bracketing eye and cheekbone.

For a long moment both men held perfectly still, Fae swaying on his feet next to the Bloodstain from Hell and the stranger half-crouched beside the body. Blue green eyes locked with darker blue ones and for a split second Fae could feel the wall of glass inside his head creaking a little, as reality tried to reassert itself and the weight of everything he'd done surged around him. He crawled further behind his defences, midnight eyes sliding closed as he fought with his guilt and won.

When he opened his eyes the strange red head was smiling, a wicked grin that Fae found a thousand times more worrying than anything he'd ever experienced before, _including_ his father's rages. "You sure did a number on the bastard, kid," he said brightly, straightening up and nudging the dead man with his boot. "A bit messy, but I'm guessing this is your first time doing this kind of shit? The first time's always the worst, yo."

All Fae could find to say in response was, "The blood won't come out of the floor."

The red head reached out and pulled the serrated bread knife from Fae's father's throat with a sickening slurping noise. He made it look easy but Fae himself had tried half a dozen times to remove the knife without result. "That's cos the wood's so pale, yo," he said, totally at ease, as though he had conversations with brand new murderers in blood-spattered living rooms every day of the week. "You gotta get it out real quick or else it sets. Elena says you can move it with vinegar or some shit, but I dunno. I just leave it, usually. If it's real bad, the boss sends round cleaners, yo, and it's gone by the time I get back from work."

Fae nodded seriously and watched the man inspect the bread knife then crouch again to poke at the ragged mess that used to be his father's neck. "Not bad," he concluded in an almost admiring tone.

"I'm going to the kitchen to get a bottle of vinegar," Fae announced randomly and wandered off again. The red haired man didn't even spare him a glance as he left the room, being rather more occupied with sticking his fingers up to the second knuckle in the hole(s) in Mr Ross' throat.

(Oh, look it's a fucking page break!)

Fae was profoundly disturbed at how many different kinds of vinegar were housed in the enormous pantry in the kitchen. Was vinegar considered a status symbol these days? If so, then he decided that his larder was profoundly fashionable_. White vinegar, wine vinegar, cider vinegar…_ Why? He grabbed one of the bottles at random and returned to the living room.

The red head had abandoned the body and was examining the splatter patterns on the wall now. "Where were you when you stabbed him, yo?" he asked without turning.

"Near the middle of the room," Fae replied distantly, struggling with the lid on the vinegar bottle. It hadn't been opened before and his Band-Aid smothered fingers weren't really up to the task. "Could you?" he asked his odd visitor finally, proffering the glass bottle.

"What? Oh, yeah, sure." He popped the cap easily and returned the vinegar before going back to inspecting the walls.

"Thank you." Pouring the yellowy liquid over the stain, Fae found himself smiling slightly as he realised that even in times of madness his manners remained intact. Mother would have been proud.

The vinegar wormed its way through the Band-Aids as he resumed scrubbing and stung in the cuts. The pain somehow seemed far off, though, easy to ignore. "Can you turn the stereo back on?" he called and a moment later Three Days Grace was pounding through his head loud enough to drown out everything.

After some minutes of scrubbing, Fae sat back, vaguely irritated. "It's not working," he yelled over the music. Next minute the stereo cut off again and Fae found himself face to face with the red head. "Guess I was wrong about the vinegar, yo. We gotta talk, anyways. See, I've got this problem."

Fae shoved his hair out of his eyes again, smearing his forehead with an unpleasant mixture of blood and vinegar. "What kind of problem?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.

"I was kinda on my way here to knock off the old man myself," the red head explained. "But it looks like you got in first… It was you, right? Not some other guy who burst in an' hacked him to bits and left you to scrub at floors in a traumatised daze, yo?"

"Nope, I did it," Fae replied with a profoundly eerie smile. He rubbed vaguely at his bruised left cheek. The skin had split a little bit along the upper edge of his cheekbone and thin rivulets of blood had dried on his pale skin and in his inky hair. The placement of the bruise was unusual -- Mr Ross was normally quite careful to avoid areas that would show. "I got a bit sick of him smacking me around," he elaborated.

"Right." The man smiled again. "Now the snag is, I now have ta explain to the higher ups exactly why I ain't coming back with some great story about how I fried Mr Ross to a smoking' black crisp. I'm taking you're his kid?"

"Uh, yeah," Fae said, managing a slightly more normal smile. "Faegyn Ross, nice to meet you." He offered a blood-smeared, Band-Aid covered hand a bit self consciously. "You don't have to," he added, taking in the actual state of his hand. It was beyond icky.

"Nah, s'right," the red head smiled, gripping it firmly. "Reno of the Turks, at yer service. Now what the hell are we gonna do about all this?"

Fae turned and looked at his father's corpse properly for the first time since he'd put him in that state. The wounds around his neck were a solid three inches of red, and his once pale gray suit had been turned a much darker shade with gore. His cadaverous face still held traces of the anger that had marked it in his final few moments, while his eyes popped with the shock he'd no doubt felt at having his withdrawn, introverted son finally standing up to him. The sight of his very first murder victim probably should have reduced Fae to a gibbering wreck, but behind his glass walls all he could feel was faint disgust at exactly how much mess the old man had made in his death throes. The blood was absolutely everywhere. If he ever did this again, Fae was so going to at least put a sheet or something down first.

"You can say you killed him, if you like," he offered. "Since I kind of stole the kill from you and all."

Reno shook his head immediately. "Hate to have to say it, kid, but you didn't really do much of a job here. Lack of practise I guess, but I got a reputation to protect, yo. 'Sides, this all really ain't my style. I'd either fry 'im or blow 'is brains out. I don't use knives."

There was silence for a few beats after that.

"I don't normally act like this," Fae heard himself say suddenly. "I don't kill people, and I don't scrub floors, and I sure as hell don't fucking _shake_." He glared at his trembling fingertips. "Or swear."

"You don't swear?" Reno sounded a bit surprised.

"Not normally."

"Fuck. That's just… weird, yo. Look, you're gonna have to come explain things to the Boss-Man. Only thing for it. So go take a shower and get changed. And grab anything you wanna keep. I'll just… finish tidying up in here…"

As Fae left the room he could hear Reno muttering to himself. "Doesn't fucking swear… gah… now… Rude said the… blue wire and the… um… shit. Which one was that again…?"

(Oh, look it's a fucking page break!)

Fae washed and changed into jeans, turtleneck and jacket without feeling the slide of the water or the rasp of clothes over damp skin. He draped the heavy silver pendant he'd bought himself for his eighteenth birthday around his neck and stared around his surprisingly bare room, wondering if he should bother to take anything else. Eventually he just walked out.

Nothing his father had provided for him was really worth keeping, after all.

Reno had set up some kind of weird briefcase/laptop on the coffee table next to the body. He was fiddling with it when Fae wandered back down the stairs and didn't look up for a bit. When he did he smiled again like lightning. "Ready, yo? Then let's get the hell out of here."

He led Fae out of the house and through the grounds, long legs eating up the distance. He stepped over several collapsed security guards whose overwhelmingly silent presence attested to exactly how it was the Turk had managed to gain access to the Ross Family Mansion. Fae was vaguely surprised at how easy Reno seemed to find killing people to be. He didn't show the slightest sign of remorse at the crumpled bodies he led Fae past and, in a few cases, over.

They finally reached the high stone wall that surrounded the grounds. Constructed initially of granite, the wall had been sheathed seamlessly with black marble. There was not a single handhold and the top was decorated liberally with razor wire. Fae had tried to climb it once when he was about eight. He still had scars on his palms and forearms to attest to just had stupid _that_ idea had been.

Reno didn't seem bothered, though, and Fae was sunk too deeply in his own mind to ask just _how_ they were going to escape the complex. "I'll just boost you up, yo," the Turk said cheerfully. "C'mere."

Fae stared at him blankly. "Did you miss the wire at the top?" he asked in a dead voice. Reno just grinned and gestured to the wall. Faegyn looked up… and saw that a neat section of wire had been cut away. "Oh," he murmured and stepped forward.

Reno wrapped a warm hand around his wrist, turning him to face the wall. The glass wall hummed faintly as though something had smacked lightly against it and then settled again.

Disconcerted, Fae almost missed Reno cupping his hands into a stirrup and telling him to hop up. With much scrambling on his part and swearing on Reno's, Fae reached the top of the wall and sat there straddling the marble. He closed his eyes for a moment and totally missed seeing how Reno got up -- when he opened his eyes, Reno was sitting across from him, grinning.

"How did you… oh, who cares?" Fae mumbled, slipping over the side of the wall and slowly, carefully lowering himself to the ground. The fall was only a couple of feet at the end, but it still jarred. Reno landed like a cat, and led him off through the darkened streets. They were about five streets away when an enormous explosion lit up the sky like noon. Technicoloured noon. Along with the characteristic orange-red fire, there were also blossomings of violet and dark blue and green. A wave of heat rushed over the two men, so intense Fae could feel it even with his dulled perceptions.

Reno turned around and started walking backwards, a nasty little laugh rising to his lips. "Now, ain't that pretty?"

The old, pre-glass wall Fae would have had to have agreed. As it was all he could think of was the bloodstain on the floor being eaten by orange fire and the mangled corpse -- the personification of Fae's guilt -- crumbling to dust. But it wasn't gone. He'd carry his father's face and the _blood_ with him forever.

(Oh, look, it's a fucking page break!)

The ShinRa building was huge and sleek and white and imposing. Just as it should be. Reno pulled his nondescript black car into a reserved parking place at the back of the building. A flashy red and black motorcycle sat in a park beside them. "Arright," Reno murmured, pulling the keys from the ignition. "Let's go, yo."

The receptionist looked up from filing her nails and gave the two a strange look as they got closer to her desk. "Hi, Reno," she said in a flirty tone, her eyes questioning as she looked at Fae. "What can I do for you?"

Reno favoured her with a predatory grin. "Lots of things, yo. You could do _lots_ of things. Right now, though, could ya ring Tseng and tell him I'm back an' I brought a friend to meet 'im?"

She managed to drag her eyes away from Fae's utterly blank face and smiled up at the red haired Turk. "Sure thing, sweetie," she purred, picking up the phone and dialling in an extension. When the other end picked up she immediately became professional.

"Hello sir, this is Sally Gordon at reception. Reno's just come back from his assignment and he's brought a person with him whom he says needs to speak with you. Do I have permission to send them up?" After that there was much uh-huh-ing, concluding with a terrifyingly brilliant smile and a "Thank you, sir," followed by a brisk hang-up.

The professional demeanour went out the window the minute Reno smiled at her. Sally leaned forward on her desk, elbows together to deepen her cleavage and a come-hither smile -- or what she _thought_ was a come-hither smile -- on her lips. "He says it's cool," she murmured, looking up at Reno through her lashes.

"Thanks, sweetheart," Reno said chirpily. "C'mon, man, let's go." He wrapped a hand around Fae's arm just above the elbow and pulled him towards the elevator. "Later, Sally!"

The second the doors closed, Reno slumped against the elevator wall, staring at Fae with a strangely wary expression on his face. "Don't do anything stupid in here, yo," he warned. "No random attacks, or weird speeches, and for Shiva's sake, no goddamn streaking."

Fae raised an eyebrow. "You take people to see your boss often?" he murmured watching the number above the door tick themselves off as the lift climbed higher.

"Don't fucking laugh, kid," Reno shot back, glaring. "You wouldn't believe how crazy people go, dammit. So just behave yourself."

"I'll be good," Fae promised meekly. Reno gave him a highly suspicious look but the doors opened before he could say anything further, so he just dragged Fae out of the elevator and down seemingly endless, utterly deserted hallways.

They finally reached the door Reno wanted and ground to a halt. Reno turned around abruptly and flicked his eyes up and down Fae's thin frame. To his surprise, he found himself fighting the urge to fidget under the Turk's stare. He hadn't fidgeted when people stared at him since he was ten years old. What was it about this man that made Fae revert to infancy?

Reno reached out abruptly and straightened Fae's collar before roughly finger combing his hair into some semblance of order. He glanced down at Fae's Band-Aid covered hands and snapped, "Keep your hands out of sight, yo." He tugged sharply at Fae's jacket so it hung straight and then nodded. "Alright."

"Should I be returning the favour?" Fae asked, mystified and faintly amused. Reno gave him a Look. "No. He's used to me lookin' like this, yo. And _you _are a smart-ass," he muttered, reaching for the door handle.

"Pot. Kettle. Black. Calling," Fae returned under his breath. He was disgusted by how easy it was to act normal. He'd killed somebody, stabbed them repeatedly with a knife until they stopped breathing and he was still able to crack jokes. It was sick, sick in the extreme. But for some reason it made him feel a little better about the whole situation.

He followed Reno into the spacious office, eyes downcast and hands held lightly behind his back. The office was quite large, and was lined with filing cabinets and bookshelfs all crammed with file upon file upon file. A heavy steel desk sat at the far side of the room, just in front of a large window. The view outside was hidden by Venetian blinds in a muted taupe shade.

Behind the desk sat a tall man with long dark hair brushed back from his forehead. His skin was the fair shade of one who didn't get as much time outside as he should, but there were still lingering traces of a tan hanging about. His eyes were so dark a green as to seem almost black and just above them, set between the straight black brows was a dark red dot drawn on the skin. Wutain, then. His build had a little more extra padding than the man seemed used to, and there was a plain gold wedding band on his ring finger. He dressed in a suit similar to Reno's, but in his case he actually bother to tuck the shirt in and do up all the necessary buttons, _as well_ as wear the plain black tie that went with it.

"I'm back, sir," Reno said chirpily, making a sloppy salute in front of the desk.

"I noticed," "Sir" said dryly. "Why have you brought this person with you?" His deep, dark green eyes drifted over to Fae, who went still, barely even breathing until he looked away again. Oh, he _hated_ that sort of person. He really did. "Sir" was the kind of man who missed _nothing_. Fae wouldn't be overly amazed to discover that the man had seen in that brief moment every single crime he had committed in his entire life, from the times he'd hidden from his nannies to the violent murder of his father.

For the first time since meeting Reno, Fae felt the faint prickling of trepidation. By rights he should be arrested for killing his father. Fae didn't know much about the Turks beyond that they did ShinRa's dirty work, but he figured that they were some branch of the armed forces and, therefore, were _policemen_. Of a sort. And policemen could arrest him and throw him in jail forever. Which would suck.

_You deserve it_, whispered one of the rather more unpleasant facets of his personality.

_Shut up_, Fae whispered back.

"There was a complication with the assignment, Tseng," Reno said flatly. Tseng looked up sharply at the use of his name. "Continue," he said after a moment.

"I got in okay, yo, but the target was already dead. He'd been murdered by his son." Reno tilted his head towards Fae. "Him. He's Faegyn Ross."

Fae found himself pinned by those eyes again. His breathing really did stop this time. "Is he indeed," Tseng murmured, his damn scary eyes suddenly thoughtful. "Tell me, Mr Ross, did you have any idea of just what your father's 'business ventures' were?"

Fae drew in a slow breath, organising his thoughts. He _did not _want to start babbling (never mind that he'd never babbled before in his life -- tonight seemed to be the night for unhappy firsts).

"I know that for the legal side of his dealings he bought and sold shares and shipped goods, mainly textiles and spices, from Wutai," Fae said slowly. "He also dabbled in property development. But I doubt you'd be interested in any of that."

Tseng nodded, about half a smile on his face now. "Correct. What else do you know?"

"You mean the illegal bit? Seems stupid to call it a _bit_," he mocked, dark blue eyes distant now as he went over every single shady deal his father had ever brokered. Anything to keep himself out of the hell that was jail. "The illegal proceeds made up the majority of my father's fortune. He wove them in and out of his legal dealings almost seamlessly. When he brought back a shipment of spices from South-East Wutai he'd have stolen antiques or jewels or _slaves_," and all the hatred bubbled up in that single word, "hidden in smuggler's hidey-holes all over the ship. Sell the jewels in Edge, the antiques on the black market and the slaves in the illegal auctions in Costa Del Sol and there's an easy twenty mil'. He has ties with the Triad and the Mafiya and Ifrit knows who else. Hell, he sold the Don's wife her fucking second home in Costa del Sol and I'll _bet _that some of the rooms in that hellhole aren't on the plans he submitted to the council -- who are all corrupt anyway. He built a block of flats here in Edge and he cut so many goddamn corners it was no wonder they collapsed six months back. Sixteen people killed in that, three of them kids and he wouldn't pay out a single gil to the poor bastards who survived with broken backs and spines and had no way to work for months so they all starved to death anyway. And --"

Tseng lifted a hand and cut off the embarrassing tumble of words that had just spilled out of Fae's mouth with twenty one years of force behind them. "And you never did anything to try and stop him?" he asked in a stern voice. "You knew all this and still did nothing. Explain yourself."

Fae just stared at him for a long moment, the words dead in his throat. "Are you fucking insane?" he gasped eventually. He felt more than a little hysterical and barely even noticed Reno wince and cover his eyes with one hand. "He would have killed me. Or, better yet, he would have had me beaten to within an inch of my life and then practically drowned me in Potion and packed me off to Costa Del Sol for a little 'holiday' while I recuperated. Wouldn't be the first time. I mentioned moving out once. I was in traction for three months."

"That certainly matches Mr Ross' reputation," said a cool, deep voice from the doorway. Fae turned around sharply and met the ice blue eyes of the strawberry-blond man standing there. He was dressed almost entirely in white, the pristine paleness of his suit set off by a darker waistcoat. His hair fell elegantly over fair-skinned cheekbones and his beautifully curved mouth was quirked in a slight smile. "He was cutthroat in his dealings," he continued, stepping further into the room. "I can believe he would behave in much the same way at home. I understand he was mostly responsible for the death of your mother?"

Fae didn't need to fight back tears -- he'd buried the pain of that wound so deep he couldn't feel the hurt years ago. "Yes, sir," he said simply. "She was pregnant with my baby sister and my father grew angry with her for… something and knocked her down the stairs. She died."

"Along with your sister…" the man murmured, icy eyes still locked on Fae's face. Fae heard a chair scrape back behind him and knew that Tseng now stood. "Sir," he said in an expressionless voice. "I had no idea you were still in the building. I would have thought you'd gone home hours ago." Fae thought he could hear a faint tenor of reproach in the words.

"But if I had of, I would have missed meeting Mr Ross here," the newest "Sir" said with a lightning smile. "And that would have been unfortunate." The pale eyes finally flicked away from Fae's face and locked with Tseng's behind him. "The only question now is what to do with him. His father had many… friends and regardless of how careful Reno was to cover the evidence, whispers will leak out. He will be in serious danger very soon."

Fae curled his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms. He hadn't thought of that. Just another problem to add to the growing pile.

"He can crash at my place tonight, yo," Reno offered. "My couch is unoccupied and I can deal with anyone who turns up to kill 'im."

For some reason, the thought that Reno would be about to protect him made Fae feel a lot better about things. The man acted like he killed as easily as he breathed and disturbing as that was, a bodyguard of sorts with that kind of ability was definitely something to think about.

"That will do for tonight," the blond man decided. "I will be away for the next few days, but if you could bring Mr Ross back on Tuesday morning I'd like to speak with him about a few things."

"Yes, President ShinRa," Reno said with a truly remarkable amount of respect in his voice considering his general attitude. Fae winced at the name and tried to straighten up from his tired slouch -- exhaustion had swept over him in wave just after his little babble-speech had been so courteously cut off by Tseng. This was Rufus ShinRa, the head of ShinRa Corporations. He'd survived an exploding building, attacks by strange monsters and a silver haired remnant-thing. _And _his father was supposed to have been just as bad a bastard as Fae's, if not worse.

Rufus glanced at him swaying there with a mixture of faint amusement and even fainter concern on his face. "Take him home and let him sleep, Reno," he ordered. "You can fill out your report tomorrow."

"Yes, sir!" Reno said happily, saluted ShinRa and Tseng and pulled Fae out of the room.

(Oh, look, it's a fucking page break!)

It turned out that the black and red motorcycle was -- surprise, surprise -- Reno's and that the nondescript black car was merely one of the company ones used for sneaking around in. The numberplates would be changed again now that Reno had used it.

Fae clung sleepily to Reno's hips as the two roared through the streets to Reno's apartment. When they got there they had to stagger up six flights of stairs because the lift was out for "the hundredth fucking time!"

Once they got to the apartment, Fae barely waited for Reno to drag a spare pillow and a blanket out of a cupboard and toss them to him before he mumbled a sleepy goodnight and fell onto the couch and into sweet, sweet, pitch black nothingness.

A/N: So there's Chapter One (and yes, I do capitalize them). Loved it? Hated it? There a little green button jeeeeeesst underneath this huge block of type that says "Review Story" or some shit. C'mon. Press it. Tell me what you thought. Ya know ya want to. An' nowwww…. Bring on the long-ass author's notes.

1) I get any reviews saying "Oh Fae is such a freakin' Mary Sue/Gary Stu/whatthefuckEVAH, he is useless, he should die, he has too many random mood swings, blah bitty blah" I will explode and shout a lot and mock you and so on. Be warned. _You _try stabbing your evil bastard of a father to death with a bread knife and you see how _your _mood swings are doing. Also, ditto reviews that say homosexuality is evil/bad/sick etc. I won't even to bother to mock you then. I'll just attempt to rip you a new one through cyberspace. Piss off and read something else, all yo' sad homophobes. We don't need you presence.

2) Does the vinegar thing work? I'm like Reno and I really like the colour of blood in the carpet/floorboards so on the not-as-rare-as-they-should-be occasions when I manage to slice myself open by accident and bleed everywhere I tend to leave it. Does vinegar remove blood stains? I didn't think it did, but I wasn't sure.

3) Reno also has random mood swings. Cos he's cool like that. And also cos I don't really have his character nailed down too well yet. I kinda like how he's coming out (haha) though so he'll probably end up staying like this OOC or not.

4) Yeah, I made Tseng gain about ten pounds and get married. Cyber cookies and muffins to anyone who can guess who to. (Lucky I have lots of them since it's pretty easy to guess. Hint: she's ditzy and blond.) His wife's about to have a kid too, in case you're interested… Cos I laaaaiiiike kids.

5) Please don't be put off by my foul mouth. I can't really help myself. I have several brothers and a father that's even worse than I am. And do you think I should put Cid in here somewhere, somehow? I LOVE Cid.

NEXT CHAPTER: Nightmares, the horror which is Reno's apartment (much worse than any nightmare), cleaning, swearing and Elena. In that order.


	2. Chapter 2

_Summary --_ After stabbing his father rather messily to death, Faegyn Ross is in danger of being shuffled off the mortal coil himself by one of his father's creepy "business associates", corrupt men running a black market traffic in slaves, among other things. Fae's placed under the protection of Reno of the Turks, who is the first to discover him with his father's body. Friendship blossoms and soon threatens to turn into something more, but with Fae trapped in a glass cage of guilt and Reno absolutely emphatic that He. Is. Not. Gay. it looks like their relationship isn't even going to get off the ground. Add near constant attempts on Fae's life, Elena trying to play the matchmaker, a part time job at Seventh Heaven and lots of dot-dot-dotting from Rude and it'll be a wonder if anybody escapes with their sanity.

_Disclaimer Part One -- _I begged and begged and offered them pocky and Pop-Tarts but Squaresoft were evil and only allowed me to borrow a few of their totally awesome characters for a bitty bit. Isn't that sad? _AND_ they said I had to return them more or less unscratched or be forced to watch the Powerpuff Girls at EMR-point for the remainder of eternity. Bastards.

_Disclaimer Part Two _-- I don't own the lyrics of 37mm. They belong to the oh-so-very awesome guys of AFI. And just on the off chance that any of those aforesaid awesome guys read fanfiction: I LOVE YOU ALL!!

_Warnings_ -- Violence, insanity on the part of the authoress, run-on sentences, seriously long-ass sentences with more commas embedded in them than should be legal, **guy on guy action** and **possible sex scenes **depending on whether I chicken out or not. Oh, and a fairly substantial smattering of cuss-words. Reno is in this fic after all. And… overdramatic summaries?

_Notes _-- Thanks to everybody who reviewed. I love you all and offer you cyber hugs and strawberry pocky (which is the greatest thing EVAR) as a token of my affection. Especially xDollix. You rule, man. Moar gushing at the bottom. Now read.

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Chapter Two

_Bring your secrets to me_

_Just give me your hands _

_And I'll let you feel the wounds_

_They put in me_

-- 37mm, AFI --

He was running, legs screaming with the pain of too many steps. His eyes streamed and stung as they filled with salt tears and his heart felt that it would tear from his chest with the force of its pounding.

Behind him, the voices shrieked at him to come back, to face his own handiwork, but the blood clinging to his hands and head was enough guilt, thank you so _very _much. He couldn't handle the rest -- the weight of the little he had chosen to carry dragged at him like leaden chains. The thought of how bad the entirety would feel filled him with horror.

He darted down another side road in the silent city streets, searching desperately for a safe haven, somewhere the pain couldn't follow him to. As he came up against the solid brick of the dead end and the shuffling steps of the corpse haunting him rang behind he couldn't suppress a bitter smile. _This is what you deserve. Murderer._

Faegyn Ross turned around and faced his nightmare.

(Oh, look, it's a page break!)

The sweat had dried on his body, sticking his clothes to the skin. Fae made a disgusted face as he pulled his turtleneck away from his chest, revulsion nearly choking him at the smell of rancid fear that wafted over him as he did so. He pushed the blanket back and rose unsteadily to his feet, glancing around the cluttered room he'd woken in.

It was a hell of a mess. The carpet was barely visible beneath the layer of clothes and towels and magazines thrown all over it and from one of the bent TV antennas dangled a hot-pink lacy G-string. A table sitting against the wall was smothered in porn and weapons magazines. The glass topped coffee table in front of the couch was covered in overflowing ashtrays, empty beer bottles and take-out containers. A sleek brown cockroach clambered out of a ramen cup.

Fae watched with sick fascination as the loathsome insect scuttled across the table to the relative safety of another half empty container. Not wanting to, but really unable to stop himself, Fae glanced inside that particular box. The food within had so much strangely coloured fuzz growing on it that he couldn't actually tell what it had once been and he swore it kind of… _moved _at one point.

He hurriedly backed away from the coffee table and its disturbing cargo (he'd _slept_ next to that -- what if the cockroaches had climbed all over him while he was unconscious?!) and stumbled off to explore the rest of the apartment.

It was surprisingly small -- apparently hired killers didn't get paid as much as Fae had always assumed -- and was pretty much all in the same state as the living room.

Reno's bedroom looked like a trailer park after a 200mph tornado had ripped through it. Clothes were strewn absolutely _everywhere_, heaped in piles in the corners, carpeting the floor. Fae was frankly amazed that Reno even _owned _so many clothes. And then he noticed that mixed in with the crumpled suits and battered jeans and offensive t-shirts were dresses and skirts and a truly disturbing amount of lingerie. The bed -- the site of a thousand conquests judging from the sheer quantity of women's clothing scattered about -- was actually a Wutain-style futon on a wicker frame.

For some reason that caught Fae off-guard, as did the scroll of Wutain proverbs haphazardly pinned to the wall next to the bed with a dagger. Somehow, Reno just didn't strike Fae as a fount of cultural marvels. The futon was unmade -- the heavy comforter had been thrown back randomly and hung to the floor, partially hiding from sight the box of rainbow condoms that sat unrepentantly next to the bed.

Fae picked his way over shirts and dresses and jeans and glanced through the door to the tiny bathroom leading off of Reno's bedroom. He winced at the sight inside.

The tiled floor was a mess of puddles and wet towels. Empty shampoo bottles lay on their sides in the corners, making homes for yet more cockroaches and a few enterprising spiders. The toilet was crammed in the corner opposite the door. In the small space on either side of it was a shower and a small washstand set beneath a medicine cabinet. The mirror affixed to the front of the cabinet had a large crack running though it from top to bottom. The cheap, scungy shower curtain had been jammed to one side in obvious haste and the shower head still dripped. Fae reached in automatically to tighten the valve and came face to clicking mandible with the biggest, ugliest, hairiest, blackest _bastard_ of a spider he had ever encountered in his life. He slammed backwards, nearly tripping over his feet as he fled the bathroom.

Back in the living room, Fae took a few long, deep breaths to help himself calm down before he made himself go inspect the final frontier of Reno's apartment -- the kitchen.

Never, ever would Faegyn Ross _ever_ eat food prepared in this hellhole. That was the first, and only, thing that ran through Fae's mind as he stared in abject horror at the cockroaches scuttling over the grimy counters and the stacks of dishes in the sink. A cheap microwave sat on the bench next to the food splattered stove. The microwave door hung open enough that Fae could see reddish brown stains from where something had exploded inside it. The fridge hummed and clunked and groaned like an old man with six heavy grocery bags staggering up a flight of stairs after a back operation. And there were more spiders, obviously related to the Black Bastard in the bathroom, sitting smugly on webs in high corners of the ceiling.

There was something about those spiders that just pissed him off. Maybe it was the aura of smug complacency about the bastards as they sat upon their filmy webs, clicking at him. These were spiders that had been allowed to go about their business since time immemorial and they held with in them the self-satisfaction of the spider who just knows he will never be attacked with bug spray and bucket of soapy water… or a well placed shoe.

The stupid disgusting things reminded him of his father's "friends", sitting smoking cigars in the garden, their wide smiles and hearty laughter broadcasting their utter contentment with the world and their place in it. No matter how many people they killed, how many lives they destroyed, they'd be safe. They had money and, if through some disaster that failed them, then they had lawyers.

They were all so _sure_ of themselves. Fae wondered if their hands had ever shook after they killed. He doubted it.

Sidling further into the kitchen he carefully cracked open the cupboard beneath the sink. It was as disgusting as he'd expected in there but there was a large aerosol can of bug spray and an unopened bottle of detergent. He grinned.

The next half an hour was spent spraying down the spiders from their webs and then jumping on them with both booted feet, imagining that the surprisingly squishy black bodies were the miniaturized heads of his father's friends. According to ShinRa those men would be after him soon enough so squishing their make believe heads did a lot to alleviate his stress regarding that little bit of information.

When all the spiders were little more than black smears on the grubby linoleum floor he started on the cockroaches. Do you have any idea how therapeutic it is to pretend a cockroach is the man you've been calling Uncle Harley since you were six years old, the man who you know beat his wife to death with a steel pipe, and spray the damn little thing with industrial strength bug spray and watch it squirm around dying? Very therapeutic, that is the answer. By the sixth or seventh cockroach was dead Fae had run out of his dad's drug lord buddies and had started on the general staff. When the last cockroach had squirmed its last there was not a single person Fae hated who had not been cockroachized and killed.

He swept all the little bodies into a heap on the floor, sprayed the twitching pile a couple more times for good measure and then loaded them all into a plastic bag and dropped the bag out the window. There was no way those were ever returning to this apartment.

(Oh, look it's a page break!)

After the incident with all the bugs, Fae had a bit of trouble stopping cleaning… He'd just finished wiping down the last of the benches in the kitchen when he heard a key turn in the lock and the door slammed open. Loud voices, those of Reno and some other highly irritated and disturbingly squeaky women invaded the silence of the apartment and rang in Fae's ears.

"I swear to Bahumat, Reno, you are the most useless, inconsiderate bastard EVER. How dare you suggest that I should walk up those stairs in my condition!"

"Well, you're ' _heavy_! Hell, you gotta stop bingeing on passionfruit topping, 'Laney. Cravings or not, that just ain't normal, yo."

There was a scream of absolute rage followed much banging, crashing and swearing. Fae slowly walked around the small wall blocking his view of the lounge and stared with some confusion at the two people lying on the still-totally-messy living room floor. One of them was Reno and the other a petite blonde woman so far into the later stages of pregnancy Fae was mildly concerned that she might just go into labour right then and there.

He tilted his head to one side, perhaps hoping that the scene before him would make more sense if he viewed it from an angle. Nope, Reno was still lying gasping on the ground next to an unfamiliar pregnant woman, rubbing a red mark on the side of his face and glaring.

", 'Laney, what the hell was that for?" he grumbled, sitting up. His ponytail was seriously wonky after his fall.

Laney favoured him with a look that would not only peal paint but would probably scorch the wall behind it as well. "I just can't _believe _you, Reno. You _dropped_ me!" She struggled to sit up, realized that it was currently impossible and lolled back down instead. "Do you have any idea how much damage that could have done to my babies?"

Babies. So she was having twins and therefore was probably less likely to be as pregnant as she seemed and so (thank the gods) probably would be going into labour any time soon. Ever since his mother had miscarried and died Fae had been slightly afraid of pregnant women. There… had been so much blood then and he never wanted to have to witness such a thing ever again… (_his mother bleeding, screaming at the foot of the stairs and then lying so, so still, the blood pooling and the mangled thing that had come out of her just…) _

Fae shook his head sharply and cleared his throat in a bid to get their attention. No such luck. Reno was on his feet now and Laney was screaming at him to help her up. The word "respect" was thrown around a great deal, mostly in the context that Reno had absolutely none of it whilst Reno snarled that there was absolutely no reason for him to have any respect, especially not for "' annoyin' squeaky rookies who shacked up with their boss and forced their superiors to carry 'em up six ' flights of stairs, yo". This, of course, did not help things and soon after Laney told Reno he was a sour, -up womanizer without even the slightest trace of compassion in his scrawny body she burst into noisy tears.

Fae winced. He hated crying women even more than he hated pregnant women. His mother had always cried, right up until the end. So he stalked over and helped the blonde sit upright. She was only a couple of years older than Fae was and very pretty, even when she was spouting tears and snot like that and wailing. "I… I _know_ everyone's saying that Tseng and I won't work out and that I'm just screwing him to get ahead in the Turks but I'm not, really, we really love each other and…"

Fae patted her shoulder awkwardly, crouched down next to her. "Yeah, I know, ignore Reno, he's just a bastard."

Who was Tseng? The name was familiar… holy shit, she was married to that tough Wutain guy from last night? Seriously? He stared in shock at her sobbing blonde head, now buried in his turtleneck, and then glanced up at Reno who was looking more than amused. "Tseng?" he mouthed. "And her?"

Reno nodded, smirk widening. "Not exactly a match made in heaven, huh?" he said, not even bothering to lower his voice. Laney stiffened and lifted her head to glare furiously at the red haired Turk. "What the would you know, Reno?" she demanded shrilly. Cuss words sounded strange in her voice and Fae decided that she must not swear that much. "You've never been in love _ever_. If you had been you'd know that we're gonna make it and you'd stop being such a bastard about the whole thing."

Reno rolled his eyes while Fae slowly tried to shrink away from the strange woman holding onto his shirt. Why did she cling so?

"Elena," Reno said in a surprisingly serious voice. "Tseng is fifteen years older than you _at least_. And he's your boss, so if it all up then you're out of a job as well. And now you're pregnant with _twins _who might very well end up growing up without a father, yo, which sucks. And just to make everything nice and complicated, you're a ' _assassin _as well so there's also a really high chance that you'll get your sorry ass shot all to pieces too. And then the kids won't have either parent. Which sucks _balls_, yo."

"Thank you for that image, Reno," Fae muttered, succumbing to his natural urge to wise crack and thereby alleviate tension. It worked -- Reno relaxed and grinned and Elena slowly let go of Fae's shirt and wiped her eyes.

"I know there're a lot of problems we gotta get through," she mumbled, blowing her nose on a dirty t-shirt she picked up from the floor. "But seriously, I think we'll manage, Reno. We do love each other, and I'm resigning from the Turks anyway. Gonna get a nice, safe desk job. So even if it does break up then my babies will still have a momma." She grinned weakly. "I _have_ thought about this you know."

Reno grinned. "Good."

Looking from one to the other, Fae picked up easily on the affection between the two. He got the impression that Reno treated Elena like a little sister and privately thought that if Tseng and Elena's marriage did end in the divorce courts then Tseng was probably going to find himself gifted with a broken nose courtesy of everyone favourite hot-headed Turk.

Working together Fae and Reno managed to haul Elena to her feet and get her seated on the battered kitchen chair that sat next to the table. As she sorted through the magazines scattered over the table, making faces at the porn mags and looking for a weapons magazine she wanted, Reno finally noticed the surprisingly cleanliness of his kitchen. "What the happened here?" he demanded in a startled voice, poking warily at a grime-and-cockroach-free bench top.

"I cleaned it up," Fae said in an I'm-stating-the-obvious-you-spoon tone of voice. "I don't know how long I'll be staying here, but if it's longer than three days then I'll probably have to eat at some point. And since that little display on the coffee table has put me off junk food for life, that means I'll have to cook something. And dying from food poisoning is pretty low on my To Do list."

Reno just grinned at him.

"It's kind of amazing that the kitchen even got that messy, Reno," Elena chipped in. "Since about the only cooking you do is making baked beans on toast. And I don't actually think that counts as cooking. Good job, Fae. Ooh, lookit that!" she said suddenly, pointing at something in the magazine. Fae glanced over. It was a gun. He lost interest at that point and didn't pay much attention to Elena babbling to Reno about it. Instead he went into the kitchen and retrieved a half empty jar of peanut butter from the cupboard, pulled a newly cleaned spoon from the dish rack and perched on the bench to consume his highly nutritious breakfast of super-crunchy peanut butter.

(Oh, look it's a page break!)

Elena left about an hour later. Apparently the real reason she'd dropped by had been to hand over a duffle bag full of things for Fae, clothes and toothbrushes and the like. Armed with bug spray, he ventured into the bathroom to do war upon the spiders and cockroaches therein. When he was finally contented that all crawling things had been vanquished, he had the fastest shower in the history of indoor plumbing, dressed with a speed that even Reno, the king of hasty early morning exits, would have been proud of, and shot out of the bathroom.

Reno was lying on his bed in a comfortable looking nest of pillows and screwed up comforter, flipping through the weapons mag Elena had been looking at before. "The bathroom next on your To Clean list, yo?" he smirked.

Fae shot him a look. "Go to hell," he mumbled irritably. His words were almost drowned out by a sudden rumbling in his tummy region. He glared and Reno sat up, laughing. "Just gimme a minute to get changed then we'll go get something to eat, arright?" the red head told him, rolling out of bed. He grabbed a shirt from the floor, sniffed at it then shrugged, dropping it on his bed as he pulled of his jacket and toyed with the buttons of his shirt, grinning at Fae. "You just gonna stand there and watch, man? Not that I'm not flattered and all, but…"

Fae told him to perform a physical impossibility and stalked out, but not before Reno pulled the shirt open and he caught a glimpse of the Turk's flat, hard stomach. An angry red scar wormed its way across his side from his left hip to just above and to the left of his navel. It looked painful and very new.

(Oh, look it's a page break!)

The restaurant Reno led Fae through winding streets to reach was very small and very Wutain. The entire menu was written in graceful Wutain characters and the grumpy old woman behind the counter spoke no English whatsoever. She shot Fae a look of acute dislike as he ducked through the door and snapped out something he couldn't understand. Her scowling face brightened, however, when she caught sight of Reno entering the shop behind Fae. She babbled a welcome in clucking Wutain, which Reno returned in the same language, and then they were off, chatting happily in strange syllables that meant absolutely nothing to Fae. He stood there silently, waiting with a truly surprising amount of patience considering his current state of partial starvation until the two had eventually exhausted all conversation topics and Reno and Fae were installed in a corner table out of sight of all the windows but with the front and kitchen doors both in full view.

"You come here a lot, don't you?" Fae murmured, amused, as he realised that the stroppy old woman had put them in the safest table in the room with no line of sight for sniper fire and clear escape routes. Reno grinned and shrugged. "Auntie Cheng's sweet," he said simply. "I got shot on assignment this one time in an alley pretty close to here, yo. Nothing serious but enough to be bloody annoying. She heard me swearing, mostly in Wutain, and she let me lay low here while the guys after me went past. And she makes fantastic dragon noodles. You want some of those?"

"Whatever you decide," Fae replied, leaning back in his chair and running a cursory eye over the watercolour above their table. It was the usual scene of a mountain with lots of strangely shaped trees. He rather liked it. "I don't eat Wutain much."

Reno ordered for both of them, and the time spent waiting for the food to arrive was filled with pointless conversation, trivial stuff. Fae asked how long Elena and Tseng had been married, Reno asked if he was planning on cleaning the entire apartment. That kind of thing.

The conversation took a more serious turn after Auntie Cheng had deposited their meal and tactfully withdrawn. "Right," Reno said, shovelling noodles into his mouth. "You're gonna be staying with me until we can track down every single one of your dad's crime buddies and arrest them. Right now you're pretty important, because you can testify against them. And that means that these people want you dead, yo. A lot. So you have to be careful. But that don't mean you get to stay holed up in my apartment all day, since I won't be there anyway and it's gonna look damn strange for me to suddenly get myself a new flatmate after three years of living there alone. So you're gonna have to start hanging round the ShinRa building. The boss man will probably find you some kind of work, yo. Filing or some shit. You beg, he might even pay you for it."

Fae considered this as he fiddled with his chopsticks, trying to figure out how to use them. He hated filing. Like really, truly, desperately hated it. Once when he was about fourteen, his father had decided that he needed to contribute to the family business. So he'd been forced to rearrange the filing system in his father's office. The sheer monotony of assembling hundreds of bits of paper into the correct sections of a steel cabinet had bored him to the point where he had begun to seriously consider lining his head up with a corner of the cabinet and slamming it into the sharp point until his head split open and his brains gushed out. Just for the amusement value of it.

"If I find a job of my own where I can be assured of a moderate degree of safety," he began, frowning at a burn scar on the wooden tabletop, "could I apply for that instead?"

"Ah, there ya go again," Reno sighed, reaching over and rearranging his fingers on the slim wooden chopsticks. His fingers were very warm and their heat lingered a fair while after he let go of Fae's hands. Something resonated against the wall in Fae's mind and he shivered. He'd almost forgotten that the thing was there. Today had seemed so very normal up until that moment. Well, sort of. The whole scene between Elena and Reno had been a bit weird and waking up next to a coffee table smothered in cockroaches didn't really fit in with his definition of a normal day, but there had been no sudden spikes of guilt, no self-loathing. Apart from the nightmare, he hadn't even thought about killing his father even once until then. Kind of strange since he'd done it just yesterday.

"There I go again what?" he mumbled, realising that he'd been staring into space for slightly too long. But Reno didn't seem to mind.

"Acting like… I dunno, Tseng, maybe. Tseng with a bit of ShinRa thrown in. 'Assured.' 'Moderate degree of safety.' Who talks like that? You were almost acting like a normal kid today. Called me a bastard and everything, yo."

Fae just looked at him. "I'm not a kid," he pointed out coolly.

Reno raised an eyebrow, grinning at him as he lifted another mouthful of noodles to his lips. Reminded of his own food, Fae tried to pick some noodles up with the chopsticks and failed miserably. "Oh really?" Reno said through a mouthful of noodles. "How old are ya meant to be then? Sixteen?"

He shot the Turk an incredulous glance. "What are you _on_? I'm nearly twenty-two."

Reno just about choked to death on his food. "Ya shittin' me, right?" he snapped once he'd finally managed to catch his breath. "No way in _hell _are you that old!"

Fae could quite hold back a startled little chuckle. He knew he should be offended that Reno had thought he was still just a kid but the sheer stupidity of the situation was enough to counteract that. Besides the dumbstruck look on Reno's face was absolutely priceless. "Uh, yeah," he replied. "Why would I lie? How old did you think I was anyway?"

Reno was slowly calming down. "I don't really know. Like seventeen? Nineteen at the most. Shit, you're only two years younger than 'Laney. You're only five years younger than _me_."

The redhead was now looking at him like he was some kind of creature from another planet, bluey-green eyes squinched up as he cocked his head to the side like a bird and peered at the younger man. "I can kinda see it now, though," he admitted finally. "But you sure as hell don't look as old as yer meant to be…"

Fae rolled his eyes subtly, trying once again to pick up some of his noodles with the chopsticks. They were going to be stone cold by the time he got any of them in his mouth at this rate. Reno watched his pathetic attempts with wicked amusement and cackled quite openly when he fumbled and dropped the few strands he'd managed to lift. Fae tried hard not to let his irritation show on his face but the attempt was doomed from the outset.

"Will you please stop being such a asshole?" he snarled, slamming the chopsticks down. "Or I swear to whatever gods are listening that I will stab you in the eye with one of these things!" He picked up one of the little bits of wood and waved it about threateningly.

Reno grinned and shoved his chair back, standing and making his way around to Fae's side of the table. He leaned over the startled man's shoulder, grabbed his hand and quite calmly positioned both chopsticks properly in it. Then, with his hand still wrapped around Fae's, he picked up a huge amount of noodles with the wooden implements and, grinning evilly, he stuffed them straight into the unsuspecting man's mouth. Fae gasped and choked, chewed desperately while trying to elbow that bastard Reno in the groin. Reno caught Fae's arm with his free hand before the elbow made contact and leaned down, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, until his mouth was level with Fae's ear.

His hot breath wafted over the delicate shell of the dark haired man's ear and Fae felt his stomach lurch unsettlingly. The glass wall popped and pinged, almost humming in his brain with the reverberation of a thousand tiny impacts.

Reno grin widened at the slightly panicky look on Fae's face. His lips brushed against the younger man's ear as he spoke.

"Watch your mouth, brat."

(Oh, look it's a page break!)

_It was entirely the wrong kind of place to hold such a conversation. The rich, lustrous emerald of the surrounding vegetation seemed almost to glow in the golden light of late afternoon. Birds trilled in the trees, chuckled and clucked to one another as below them corrupt men spoke of terrible things._

"_So Ross is definitely dead? What was the cause? That fire was not regular."_

"_ShinRa." The voice of the second man was a dead rasp, cold and chilling, especially as opposed to the warm tones of the woman who had spoken before it. "He must have uncovered something of our operations. The question is, what happened to his son?"_

"_The brat?" The woman was surprised and more than a little scornful. "My dear, you must be losing your mind. He is hardly a concern."_

"_Ah, but he is," said a third voice, another man, the syllables thick and rough with a Slum accent. Despite the accent, the man spoke clearly enough and his words were educated. "He is hardly a child anymore and he was present throughout most of our meetings. His father seemed to think of him as an unpaid servant of sorts. If there's anyone outside of the business who knows enough to have us all put away, it's him."_

"_He died in the fire," a fourth voice objected, oily and drenched in the distinctive tones of a resident of Costa Del Sol. "He is no longer our problem."_

"_There's no evidence to suggest that he really did die," the educated man pointed out. "Nothing."_

"_There is no evidence of anything, dear," the woman laughed. "And no evidence to be uncovered, at least not at the house. The place resembles a crater."_

"_Say what you like about their tiresome morals," the dead sounding man murmured, "ShinRa does have access to the best explosives I've ever seen."_

"_Irrelevant," the educated man snapped. "The boy could still be alive."_

_The woman sighed, and boredom is evident in her next words. "Do what ever you feel you must, Harley. Get your pet Turk on the case. You must keep him around for __**something **__other than all the kinky sex."_

_Laughter rings out in the garden and, perhaps finally understanding what has been going on below them, the birds all fly away._

(BRING ON TEH AUTHOR'S NOTES!!!)

First of all...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

And here's Chapter Two! And it's nearly as long as One was. Which is strange cos it's really just a filler… But I finished it! Aren't you all proud of me?

1) Actually it's a wonder that it even _got_ posted since would not let me upload the document possibly due to all the swearing in it. But since when has that well mattered? Can anyone shed some light on this? Cos if it isn't cleared up I'm just gonna start posting on Livejournal.

2) Special thankies to xDollix for his or quite possibly her review. You really think Fae's a good OC? Really? Believe me you have my undying gratitude for that. This chapter is sadly lacking in gore for you, but the next one might be a little better. Still, the swearing was probably up to standard. XD

3) Ooh, ooh, I smell hints of plot. First time I've ever managed to write a story with an actual established plot, not just the usual flailing about trying desperately to work out where I'm going some time around the fifth chapter. I know where this is going and I even have a vague idea of how I'm gonna get there. Which for me is STRANGE, man!

4) Elena is married to Tseng (after the whole thing with the Remnants and nearly dying and Rufus nearly dying and getting tortured and shit Tseng stopped being such a spoon over the subject of Aerith -- who, may I point out, is DEAD -- and started taking a little more notice of everyone's favourite ditzy blonde rookie) and is going to be having twins sometime within the duration of the story. She's about five or six months pregnant at the moment. And she's getting a lot of shit over her and Tseng's marriage (even though they've been together for over a year people still feel a need to ) and combined with stress and waddling and cravings for passionfruit topping she's having a bit of trouble coping. Thus her little breakdown. But she'll be getting a lot better from now on as she will soon have a certain little project of hers to keep her occupied: matchmaking…

5) Squashing bugs is awesome stress relief. And cockroaches make me feel sick. So they must **DIE**.

6) I had a hideous amount of trouble getting the lyrics for at the beginning. GOD! The first chapter was easy so I thought it would be the next time and it wasn't and my brain just about exploded and so they have no real relevance to anything I'm afraid. The only reason they're there is because 37mm is my favourite song at the moment and I was listening to it continuously as I stomped about swearing and promising to do horrible things to the Spirit of Writer's Block if I ever met it and when I couldn't think of anything for the lyrics I was just like " IT!!!" and put them in. But seriously it's a great song so go listen to it.

Love to all reviewers. Seriously. Although not in a smoochy way as that makes me think of internet stalkers and I don't even really know any of you in the first place and…

Please excuse typos.

Anyway please bestir yerselves to just click on that little(ish) green button down below and tap out a few words. Or maybe more than just a _few_ words. I mean I laboured over this thing. When you include the days of writer's block and swearing at the screen which stubbornly refused to just magically create a perfect chapter on its own with no input whatsoever from me and then when my comma key sort of died and I had to fight the urge to stab the damn thing with a fork and stuff. Especially given my love of commas. Don't I get even a couple of sentences? PWEASE?

NEXT CHAPTER -- Seventh Heaven, the Turks, shit loads of drinking, Tifa and maybe just a little bit of gratuitous violence. Cos Reno probably will be having to do some _work_ at some point. And writing from his point of view could be fun.


	3. Important Notice!

Just a quick notice to everybody who has so far glanced at this story. I will no longer be posting it on due to the fact that administration has installed so strange program that eats all swear word. If you would just glance through the second chapter I'm sure you'll notice a strange lack of a word that rhymes with duck. I can't even write it here because it would disappear.

I can't even begin to explain how angry this makes me. One of the main reasons I've always loved is because there used to be a complete lack of censorship. And now that is gone. So from now on I will be posting in livejournal. Anybody who is interested in reading the rest of Fae and Reno's tale just follow the link I'll be putting up in my profile. Thanks.

Acid Fantasia.


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